Today is Meteor Watch Day, a day to look up at the skies and beyond the wonder of nature's celestial fireworks, Many times a year, hundreds of celestial fireballs light up the night skies.
They may be called shooting stars, but they don't really have anything to do with stars. These small space particles are meteoroids and they are literally celestial debris.
Meteor, Meteoroid or Meteorite?
A meteoroid can be dust particles or fragments from a comet or an asteroid. Whenever a meteoroid enters Earth's atmosphere, it generates a flash of light called a meteor, or shooting star. High temperatures caused by friction between the meteoroid and gasses in the Earth’s atmosphere heats the meteoroid to the point where it starts glowing. The streak of light is the trail of the burning hot air, or sometimes glowing material, which the meteoroid leaves in its wake.
Meteors generally glow for a very short period of time.
If a meteoroid does not fully disintegrate while passing through Earth’s atmosphere and hits Earth, it is known as a meteorite.
No comments:
Post a Comment